Today is National Girls and Women in Sports Day, dedicated to acknowledging and championing the accomplishments of women in sports. It is also a reminder that the fight for equality in athletics is far from over.

Flo Hyman understood that fight intimately. The Olympic volleyball player was a leading advocate for Title IX, and National Girls and Women in Sports Day was created in her honor.

Great progress has been made in the world of sport since Hyman’s work and the passing of Title IX, but there’s still much to be done. Today, only two in five girls participate in sports, deterred by reasons like cost, access to facilities, safety and more. It’s an equity issue our friends at Under Armour are placing front-and-center this year with a commitment to breaking down barriers that keep millions of youth from playing. “Everyone deserves the right to experience the power of sport,” says CEO, Patrik Frisk.

Today, we’re joining Under Armour to celebrate four incredible female athletes whose early involvement in sports launched their successful careers and who continue to inspire us every day.

Kelley O’Hara

The two-time World Cup champion and Olympic gold medal winner is one of the most influential players in American soccer. O’Hara also hosts the Just Women’s Sports podcast. Now a star defender for the reigning NWSL champion Washington Spirit, O’Hara played forward all her life before switching to left back during the 2012 Olympic qualifying tournament.

O’Hara rose up the ranks as a soccer player in Fayette County, Ga., where she played four years of varsity at Starr’s Mill High School and led the team to a 5A state title as a senior in 2006 with 20 goals and 16 assists. The standout season earned her Gatorade Georgia State Player of the Year honors and a leading role at Stanford as a freshman. In 2009, she won the Hermann Trophy, given annually to the nation’s best player.

Jordan Thompson

The 6-foot-4 Thompson was a key cog on the United States’ 2020 Tokyo Olympics team, scoring 34 points to help eliminate defending champion China in pool play. Despite losing Thompson to injury, the U.S. went on to win its first-ever gold medal.

Thompson starred at Edina High School (Minn.), playing four years of varsity and leading the team in blocks and kills as a senior. She earned her first college scholarship after just two years of club volleyball, and at Cincinnati, where she helped run an athlete bible study in her spare time, she was a three-time unanimous American Athletic Conference player of the year.

Odicci Alexander

The reigning Softball America Pitcher of the Year recently wrapped up one of the most decorated college careers of all time. As James Madison’s starting pitcher for four seasons, Alexander led the Dukes to their first-ever College World Series in 2021. Alexander went 6-2 with a 2.92 ERA and 66 strikeouts in 64 2/3 innings as James Madison became the first unranked team to advance to the semifinals.

Alexander was raised by her grandparents in Boydton, Va., and taught herself how to pitch by spray-painting targets on her grandparents’ water well. She flew under the radar at small-town Park View High School, and was discovered by a James Madison coach who was in the area to scout the opposing team’s pitcher.

Alexander now pitches for the USSSA Pride after playing in Athletes Unlimited’s second softball season last year.

Kaila Charles

One of the WNBA’s top rising prospects, Charles was selected No. 23 overall by the Connecticut Sun in the 2020 draft. Charles helped Maryland win the Big Ten Tournament her freshman and senior seasons and averaged 13.8 points per game over her career, tied for 12th in program history.

Charles starred for three years at Eleanor Roosevelt High School (Greenbelt, Md.) before transferring to nearby Riverdale Baptist School, where she led the team to the national championship game and earned McDonald’s All-American honors. Charles is of Trinidadian and Antiguan heritage, as represented on her custom Under Armour sneakers.

Led by undefeated overall No. 1-seed Nebraska, the college volleyball elite will begin their quest for the 2025 national championship on Thursday, when the first round of the 64-team NCAA Division I tournament hits courts nationwide.

The Huskers are still chasing a perfect season, entering the 2025 title hunt on a 30-0 run having dropped just six sets all season — including losing just one set since September 16th.

"I was expecting us to be great, but certainly not undefeated," said Nebraska alumna and first-year Cornhusker head coach Dani Busboom Kelly on a recent episode of the Welcome to the Party podcast. "They continue to exceed our expectations."

Busboom Kelly's roster is loaded with the kind of experienced connection that only comes when the core of players have competed together for three straight seasons — an increasing rarity in the transfer portal and NIL era.

That said, this core has unfinished business on the national stage, with the superstar junior trio of middle blocker Andi Jackson, outside hitter Harper Murray, and setter Bergen Reilly — all AVCA Player of the Year semifinalists — looking to bring the first NCAA trophy in eight years back to Lincoln.

"It's such a special row, because we just know that all of us have been through thick and thin together and our bond is so strong," Jackson told USA Today Sports earlier this week. "[And Busboom Kelly] gives us so much confidence and we know that with her as our coach, we just can play fearless."

Stacked tournament field looks to spoil Nebraska's season

Even with their "fearless" play, a host of stellar opponents await Nebraska in the NCAA tournament gauntlet, hoping to play spoiler — including Busboom Kelly's previous program, the Louisville Cardinals, who await the Cornhuskers as the No. 2-seed in their own regional quadrant.

Fellow No. 1 seeds Texas, Kentucky, and Pitt will also chase their eventual chance at the Huskers via their own regionals, where the Longhorns could see arguably the stiffest competition from both No. 2-seed Stanford — the winningest program in NCAA volleyball history — and defending champion and No. 8-seed Penn State.

With tickets to the 2025 Final Four in Kansas City on the line, the NCAA volleyball bracket's 64 squads will start serving at 16 campus sites on Thursday.

How to watch the first round of the 2025 NCAA volleyball tournament

This year's NCAA volleyball finale begins when No. 5-seed Colorado takes on unseeded American University at 3 PM ET on Thursday, kicking off a two-day first round of 32 matches — with No. 1 Nebraska looking to handle Long Island University in their initial tournament tilt at 8 PM ET on Friday.

All games in the early rounds of the 2025 Division I tournament will air live on ESPN+.

US tennis star Coco Gauff continues to win off the court, with the 2025 French Open champion topping Sportico's list of the 15 Highest-Paid Female Athletes for the third consecutive year.

Fueled by $23 million in off-court endorsements, the $31 million earned by the 21-year-old world No. 3 WTA player edged out the $30 million total income that fellow tennis star and world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka garnered in 2025.

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Unsurprisingly, a full 10 athletes on the Sportico Top 15 list are tennis stars, a direct result of the fact that all four Grand Slams and the Masters 1000 tournaments boast equal prize money between the men's and women's competitions — a shift that began with the 1973 US Open.

That established expectation of gender equity in prize money has tennis far outpacing salaries in most other women's sports.

Also making the Top 15 are two LPGA golfers — world No. 1 Jeeno Thitikul (No. 15 on the Highest-Paid Female Athletes list) and US star No. 2 Nelly Korda (No. 7) — as well as popular Olympic skiier Eileen Gu (No. 4), WNBA superstar Caitlin Clark (No. 6), and USA gymnastics legend Simone Biles (No. 11).

Notably, Gu, Clark, and Biles as well as Venus Williams (No. 14) all proved the power of endorsements on this year's list, with nearly all of the quartet's earnings coming from sponsorship deals.

As WNBA CBA negotiations rage on, revenue sharing continues to be a wedge issue for both sides of the table, with the league office and the WNBPA eyeing the terms of the most recent proposal from differing viewpoints.

The Athletic reported on Wednesday that the WNBA believes it has offered the revenue-sharing salary model that the players have pushed for throughout the CBA talks, leaving athletes to claim 50% of the "sharable" portion of league revenue.

How the WNBA will determine the "sharable" cut is uncertain, though sources claim the compensation structure on offer will result in players taking home less than 15% of the league's total earnings.

That percentage is likely to take a further hit over the lifetime of a new CBA, according to the league's multi-year earning projections.

"I don't feel like there's any cultivation of a culture of trust [in the CBA talks]," WNBPA president and Seattle Storm star Nneka Ogwumike told The Athletic. "I feel like we've been heard, but not listened to, and I'm hoping that that changes in this 40-day extension, because what we want to do is get a good deal done."

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Parental leave, draft combine, and more enters the WNBA CBA talks

Along with the issue of revenue sharing, the latest WNBA offer also reportedly outlined other proposals, such as the institution of a required offseason draft combine, the elimination of team housing, and the possible extension of the competition calendar by starting earlier and/or finishing the season later.

As for the WNBPA's Tuesday counteroffer, the players union is seeking to eliminate the core designation and shorten the current four-year rookie contract to three years.

The WNBPA is also asking to add non-birthing parental leave, retirement benefits, and reimbursements for mental healthcare.

The WNBA and WNBPA will meet again to negotiate sometime this week, with talks racing toward the second-extension deadline of January 9th, 2026.

After setting a new NCAA basketball record by scoring 100+ points in eight consecutive games, the No. 5 LSU Tigers will face their season's first true test when they visit the preseason-No. 7 Duke Blue Devils as part of the 2025 ACC/SEC Challenge on Thursday night.

"We don't play nobody in our nonconference schedule," senior guard Flau'jae Johnson told JWS in November. "From December on out, that's when it gets really [exciting]."

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With their history-making string of lopsided wins under their belt, the Tigers will try to keep the streak alive against a now-unranked Duke side on a three-game losing skid.

The Blue Devils will rely on leading scorer and rebounder Toby Fournier for a spark, with the sophomore forward averaging 15.8 points per game despite Duke's 3-5 start.

As for LSU, the title-hunting Tigers will look to stat undefeated behind Johnson's team-leading 17.0 scoring average, as well as the 16.1 points per game put up by junior star transfer MiLaysia Fulwiley.

"Ballers just want to ball, like hoopers just want to hoop," Johnson said of LSU's quick cohesion this season. "You find different ways to bond and gel with teammates."

How to watch LSU vs. Duke on Thursday

Duke will host No. 5 LSU in the 2025 ACC/SEC Challenge at 9 PM ET, with live coverage airing on ESPN.